I Keep Bleeding
by AllynDupe
Summary: Love is hard to handle. But no love more than when you have strong feelings for a sibling, something rare but extremely painful for the pair going through it. Reno is unsure of how to deal with his strong attraction to his younger sister, Cissnei.


The pages were small. I remembered that it was something you always used to complain about, how the pages were small and you couldn't fit very much of your "gorilla writing" as you put it, on one clean lined page.

But to me, your writing was beautiful; big or not. The gentle curves of the smooth handwriting was innocent and striking. I felt guilty, and it ran through my throat like an infection. Pain.

_Closed off from love,  
I didn't need the pain.  
Once or twice was enough,  
And it was all in vain.  
Time starts to pass,  
Before you know it you're frozen.  
_

I didn't feel right touching your diary. It was personal, you always said, so you used just a regular old coiled note book for a journal, and always kept in among your school things so Mom and Dad wouldn't notice or pick through it.

But for some reason, the way you showed me the closed cover and told me where you kept it...It almost felt as if you secretly wanted me to read it. Pick apart the pages, pick apart your feelings and know what you kept sheltered beneath your heart. The legacy of your heart, inscribed in blood and dripping with emotion.

But I never had the guts. Until today, that is.

Suddenly, I felt a little stupid and I smiled to myself in the silence and droning lonliness of your bitter cold dungeon. I mean, bedroom. I was acting like you were dead. Face upturned, body cold, blood frozen...But you weren't. You were very much alive, especially in my thoughts.

You were not dead, you had migrated. A different household, hopefully to move on and be what was considered normal. But normal was over-rated; that was something else you often said.

Finally I concentrated on not just the lettering, but what was written on the first page of the diary. I remember you had once told me there weren't many entries; and that was just fine by me. The thought of reading through all your tangles, the mess of feelings and thoughts that a diary was, like a dump that lacked garbage, gave me a lump in my throat the size of a turtle's shell. Or, so it felt.

My eyes skimmed the words of the first entry, concentrated and hard, on the purple lettering of your favorite pen.

_But something happened,  
For the very first time with you.  
My heart melted to the ground,  
Found something true.  
And now everyone's looking around,  
Thinking I'm going crazy._

_Dear Diary,_

_This is my very first entry, so, I guess I should say hi. Mom suspects that I'm troubled, something I find stupid because I don't act like that. That's why she told me I should start a diary, but to her knowledge I still haven't. I'm hiding it from her, I just think it's a way for her to pry into my life without having to question me face to face. Well, whatever. Her and Dad had another one of their stupid arguments again today. I'm always finding myself wondering when it's going to stop, or if there's a way I can stop it. Probably not. Reno was out all day, I hope he comes home soon. I'm starting to run out of ways to drown out all the yelling._

_January 22_

I thought about how you said you didn't act troubled, but you didn't deny being troubled. I wanted to ask you suddenly what was the matter, what you were defending inside your skinny frame. I wanted to crack your shell all across the floor, spilling out the secrets so that maybe I could have the smallest possibility of understanding what fueled your ambition for everyday living. What made your auburn hair dance in the sunshine and autmn eyes flicker with grim fire; I wanted to know what you were. I wanted to understand.

I remembered how much Mom and Dad fought. Sometimes I felt like I could never stop it, and sometimes I didn't want to. They fought about money, they fought about work...They fought about us and how we were being raised. I never felt fueled to do anything about it, until the day you wrote your first diary entry.

Mom and Dad were practically tearing eachother's throats out with words, pummelling like two wrestlers in the ring. I walked through the door and nobody acknowledged my returning to the house. I walked up the stairs and opened your closed bedroom door. To my surprise, I could see tears like thick, lonely, salty sea water coarsing down your cheeks. You were fifteen, and that had been the first time I had seen you cry since you were maybe ten or eleven. Suddenly something hit me like a big yellow school bus.

You didn't want me to see you cry, and you said that to me. I said I didn't care and you failed to respond at all.

I sat with you on the bed for nearly and hour, one of my arms draped over your shoulders and neither of us saying a word. We sat there as the household war raged on like a storm outside your bedroom door. I sat there until it was over. Then you wiped your face, thanked me and said you were going to bed.

_But I don't care what they say,  
I'm in love with you.  
They try to pull me away,  
But they don't know the truth.  
My heart's crippled by the vein,  
That I keep on closing._

I remembered your smile, the rainbow after the storm. I felt a little better and headed to my room. After that, you didn't care so much about crying in front of me. Everytime that it happened you'd apologize, but I think you knew very well that I didn't care. I couldn't care, all that mattered was you getting better, and for your porcellen skin to become dry again; dry and glass looking like the surface of ice or beautiful china...Perfect. I never wanted to see a crack run through it.

I turned the page, to view the second entry. Same writing, same color...The pages smelled of your hand cream, a citrus smell that always caused my nose to tingle. Like oranges and pinapples and fresh air; that was how you always smelled.

_Dear Diary,_

_I got asked out on a date today. I don't even wanna mention the guy's name, he's a total jerk...I turned him down but only because I'm interested in somebody else at the moment, although I don't like to say who. I don't know how he feels. It's confusing, it's like those strange days when it's sunny in the sky but pouring rain, somehing that could be bad and good at the same time. Anyway, I don't have anything else to say._

_March 10_

You used to complain to me about how the guys at School didn't like you, or weren't as into you as the pretty blonde girls with the hourglass curves, barbie doll faces and angel hair. I told you I thought you were beautiful and you didn't say anything.

I felt like a jerk then, too. I knew it wasn't something I was supposed to say to you; my little sister. That was something you said to girlfriends, girls you knew well or not, and simply...Anyone who did not share invisible bonds that you called blood relation, ties that held you by the wrists and neck and ankles and attatched you to other people. However, only sometimes did these bonds cause pain; and this was an experience that was way too close to home.

I wondered who you were interested in, although something already told me I knew. My heart raced, my palms began to sweat just a little. The little voice in the back of my head told me it was me, and that it was wrong and torturous to be in love with a sibling because you could never truly have them. Something told me that was what was troubling you, what caused you to seem so introverted and sad when I looked at you sometimes. Like eternity was in your eyes, your pupils a space craft travelling the cosmos. I felt guilt wrack my frame.

_You cut me open and I,  
Keep bleeding, keep, keep bleeding love.  
You cut me open._

I swallowed a lump that was big and heavy, like I had just lost a pearl or maybe a large pebble down my throat with what little saliva my nervousness had left behind.

The next page was turned and I read the next entry you had added to the book. The book with the pink, plaid pattern on the cover and the gray, tasteless coils going up the left side.

_Dear Diary,_

_Reno brought home another one of those stupid girls this evening. I hate it when he does that, not that I really want to tell him. He won't stop anyway. I've always figured those girls with their angelic beauty and bodies were hard for guys to resist. Sometimes I wanna tell him that I wish he wouldn't bring these girls home, that he wouldn't talk to them, hang out with them, sleep with them. All those girls at school were too educated in sex for their own good, and sometimes I wish he wouldn't care for them and would pay more attention to me. Want me the way he seems to want them, treat me not as a Sister but more like a friend, or a stranger...Anything would be less painful than being treated like a sister when I have these abnormal and freakish feelings pushing me over the edge of the cliff I consider my sanity. Anyway, good night. I'm going to try and get a good sleep, hopefully the noises won't keep me awake._

_April 4_

I let my eyes wander around the walls. How many secrets did you tell to this room without caring to let me know? I felt like throwing myself against the walls, taking the pain as punishment for my stupid behavior. I didn't move.

I had no idea how you felt, as you had no idea of my feelings. I kept a lot of things to myself. I didn't like bottling things up inside, I had knowledge of what that could do to a person and how it could drive them insane until they were ready to drop on the floor and never get up again. But there were some things that you had to keep to yourself, and I had at least a few of those.

Especially how I brought those girls home to detatch myself from you. To break the attachment and attraction I felt all over you. The strange attraction that I felt to your curly fire hair, your thin, pale complextion and your sweet, delicious scent. I wanted to destroy that.

_Trying hard not to hear,  
But they talk so loud.  
Their peircing sounds fill my ears,  
Try to fill me with doubt.  
Yet I know that the goal,  
Is to keep me from falling./i_

I remembered how your eyes looked when I brought home those bimbos. I remembered how dark and murky they looked, like black smog or tainted crystals or the deepest, darkest part of the ocean floor. Strange and sad, something that drove me crazy to look at. You made me crazy on those wild nights.

I was never into the sex while it was happening. It seemed like a good idea when I was talking to the girl and driving her to the house and thinking about it. It seemed like a good idea when I was unzipping my blue jeans and unsnapping her bra. But it just seemed that as soon as I was inside her, hearing her cries of pleasure and being urged on as the night raced along; only then did I discover the rotten core to my plan.

I remembered your disgustingly disappointed eyes, how far away they seemed. I remembered you. Then I thought about you and couldn't stop thinking about you. It was just as if I wanted her to be you, to have your eyes, hair, face...To hear your voice and spend the night with you in the same manner. It was wrong and disturbing. Sometimes I'd even stop abruptly in the act and send the girl packing. Sometimes I'd let the night continue until the end, satisfying myself with thoughts of you. Whichever road I took, it made me feel like a creep and a jerk and a total asshole, but none of those names were awful enough to describe how I felt whenever I realized you were taking over everything in my life that you shouldn't be. You had conquered my brain. You had conquered my actions. You had conquered my decisions. However, most of all, you had conquered my heart. And I was starting to accept that brutal reality.

Shaking off the thoughts and memories like a soaked dog would water, and I brought mt eyes back to the diary. I had to stop thinking about those lowly nights. It was time to fill my head with another aspect of poison gas; whichever memory you were to pull me through. Memories that stung like a thousand bee stings and burned like a lake full of acid, yet touched softly like the fingers of a baby and tasted sweet like fresh strawberries. You were all these things and more.

_But nothing's greater,  
Than the rush that comes with your embrace.  
And in this world of lonliness,  
I see your face.  
Yet everyone around me,  
Thinks that I'm going crazy.  
Maybe, maybe.._

_Dear Diary,_

_This is the worst day ever. Not only has Mom and Dad's fighting gotten even worse lately, but now Mom is kicking him out! I never thought something this bad would happen..This family is finished. I don't know how much more I can take. So much bullshit, oh my God..._

_April 30_

This was the shortest entry by far, and I could remember the day like it was merely a minute into my past. It was quite the emotional day for almost everyone; but nobody more than you.

I remembered how you cried into my shirt, I remembered how you sobbed for hours on end even after Dad was gone and the noise had stopped. It was just as if somebody had pressed the repeat button; you just wouldn't stop. You were so young. I was only a year and a half older, but sometimes you seemed so young. Especially when I looked into your drowning eyes, watching the burning color of those beautiful eyes drown in an ocean of salty sorrow.

I wanted to shelter you. I wanted to be able to protect you from everything...All the crashing waves of depression, all the stinging, painful rain. The collapsing walls of terror, and sometimes even the blistering rose of love. Because sometimes love could be wrong. Life was a car lacking brakes, racing down a highway of unexpected swerves and turns. Sometimes you just had to crash.

I didn't know where I was going to be or what I was going to be doing days from then, but while I held you on your bed for those long and painful hours, I felt like nothing else mattered. I would have sat there for days, because you needed me. And whenever you needed me, that was the most important thing.

I knew I shared a love for you unlike anything else, and sometimes it was a good thing, and other times, terrible. Well, whatever it was, it was different. Unlike anything I had ever felt; and that was a good feeling. I didn't know why, but do you ever need to know sometimes when you just feel that something is right?

_But I don't care what they say,  
I'm in love with you.  
They try to pull me away,  
But they don't know the truth.  
My heart's crippled by the vein,  
That I keep on closing._

For just a second I took your diary and held it to my chest. I breathed in and out deeply. I had seen rain. I had seen snow, sunshine, rain, lightening and hail all in one Summer.

But when I looked at you...I saw too many different things. I saw the sensitivity of a small child, I saw the intense, firey personality of a dragon. I saw the adorable innocence of a fluffy little rabbit, and I saw angelic, serene beauty and the true essence of sin; something you want badly, but you can't have. I saw my younger sister, Cissnei, the only girl I was starting to see myself spending the rest of my life with. I felt sick and my stomach churned just thinking about you.

_Dear Diary,_

_This is the last entry I'll be writing to you. Mom is making me go live with Dad across town. I really don't want to, she's making Reno stay here with her. She's seperating us because she suspects us being more than just siblings and she's disgusted. I've never hated her more._

_Reno,_

_If you ever get the guts to read this, (I'm leaving it here on purpose, and I hope you do.) I want you to know that I love you. I've never had the guts to tell you, and by now you probably know a lot of stuff I felt and didn't tell you. I'm sorry, I used to think it was weird...But I don't anymore. Now I just feel like I've done something wrong by loving you, and that's Mom's fault. But it never was wrong. You're the only guy I trust and ever will trust. I hope you move on, though, and maybe we'll talk soon if Mom ever lets us. Bye._

_~Cissnei_

_PS: Don't miss me, I'll miss you enough for the both of us._

_May 22_

I turned the page, expecting more, wanting more. Every other page was empty and looking barren, almost like the inside of my heart. Sitting in your empty room, I finally felt the pain of having you re-located. It stung my chest and my eyes and my throat, stung until I leaned against the cold wall behind me and sighed. Gasping for breath, my need for you gasping.

_And it's draining all of me,  
Oh, they find it hard to believe.  
I'll be wearing these scars,  
For everyone to see._

I felt a part of some sort of twisted Romeo and Juliet. Except you were even more beautiful than such a lovely figure; nothing could match your beauty. Not angels, not flowers and certainly not any other girl. Nothing could match your strong, firey wit. Not crackling fires and not the devil himself.

And, nothing could break my love for you. Not even a thousand strong arms, not thrashing lightening bolts or a room full of slithering, poisonous snakes. I could pretend it was all over. I could pretend I had paved the road to hell and now I was walking away from my finished project.

But it would never be over. To Mom's knowledge it had to be, but I knew what was true. True as color, shape and life.

I placed your diary back where I had found it, in the back of your empty closet. I missed you; my heart was bleeding for your presence and I felt it would never stop. I felt your bravery sitting upon my shoulders; I knew you didn't have to confess your love. We both could have remained, lived on, just subconciously knowing what we had between us. The kind of beauty and harmony that sometimes made me want to stand on top of my room and scream this bitter sweet secret to the world.

I would never have done that, but the thought was nice. The thought of being carefree. Happy. In love. And maybe accepted.

_I don't care what they say,  
I'm in love with you.  
They try to pull me away,  
But they don't know the truth.  
My heart's crippled by the vein,  
That I keep on closing. _

_I walked to the window and looked outside at the world raging. The trees bending in agony under the dictatorship of the strong winds, the sky cloudy and grey and joyless. I sighed. I knew somewhere, you were watching the same scene. The same vicious wind, the same dull eternity._

However, you were closer to the ocean now. Across town, in a different universe. Someday you would find my secrets sleeping beneath the heavy, black waters. Find another page to let you understand the extent of my love for you. Find another fragment of the love that would live for eternity, soar through the clouds, float across the water and dash across the land, until it was known everywhere.

Life would always be a car lacking brakes, racing down a highway of unexpected swerves and turns._ Sometimes you just had to crash. _

_You cut me open and I,  
Keep bleeding, keep, keep bleeding love.  
You cut be open and I keep, keep bleeding love. _

_**Bleeding Love//End.**  
_


End file.
